The Plan for Growing Sydney

The State Government’s Plan for Growing Sydney was released in December 2014. In the plan Chatswood is declared as being a Strategic Centre, The plan is to locate employment and jobs within the strategic centres. Another facet of the plan is to reduce commute times to work. This can be achieved by placing increased residential density at strategic centres such as Chatswood.

Another key tenet of the plan is to ‘accelerate housing supply’.This will be targeted for strategic centres, placing Chatswood under increasing stress (both in terms if infrastructure as well as social pressures).

The Government is working to achieve its target of an additional 664,000 new dwellings across Sydney by 2031. They posit that local councils need to understand and respond to the housing
market (or else?) A strategy is to ACCELERATE NEW HOUSING IN DESIGNATED INFILL AREAS (ESTABLISHED URBAN AREAS) (such as Chatswood?)

The specific objective on the plan for Chatswood is:

Work with council to provide capacity for additional mixed-use development in Chatswood including offices,

For the past ten years, even with similar objectives for jobs growth and employment in Chatswood, the State Government has overturned Council plans in favour of allowing more high rise development. Will this new plan really change anything?